Home Page › Forums › Missouri Pacific Historical Society › Photo of the Week › Photo of the Week 6/19/17 – Bayou Pierre, LA Paper Mill
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June 19, 2017 at 12:36 pm #5941Dennis FairclothParticipant
This week we feature a paper mill at an unknown location. GP38-2 2307 is switching a cut of cars that includes Southern Railway hoppers full of coal. There is a cut of empty woodchip cars on the next track to the left. One track further to the left is the dumper for coal, with the conveyor passing under the other tracks to the stockpile and power plant. The pulp mill is the set of stacks behind the power plant, and the paper producing part of the mill is the large building in the right background. The far track to the left is outside the fence, implying it is a spur or main track separate from the in-plant trackage.
Can anyone help nail down the location of this plant?
[attachment=0:1k6z293g]POTW paper mill Box-7 Row-3-007.jpg[/attachment:1k6z293g]
June 19, 2017 at 8:19 pm #8324peggyrothschildParticipantTed
Is there a processing date on the slide? MP served a number of paper mills. South Texarkana, Bastrop, Natchez, Pine Bluff and Bayou Pierre were all International Paper plants. Bayou Pierre was opened in the late 1970s. Every plant was served by two RRs. I’ve sent the photo to a couple retired guys that might know.June 20, 2017 at 12:22 am #8325peggyrothschildParticipantI talked to Dan Misenheimer this afternoon as he was at Shreveport when this mill was opened. Dan was pretty sure it’s the IP Bayou Pierre near Mansfield. Besides the MP serving the mill the KCS also was the other carrier. The MP switched the plant as by the 1970’s with computerization made it difficult to have two roads moving cars around and trying to maintain the plant’s inventory. I also did a google map search and verified this was the mill at Bayou Pierre.
The plant at Pine Bluff was switched by the MP on daylights and SSW on second shift. I think third shift was rotated. The SSW clerks were taught TCS and that’s how the inventory was maintained. MP installed a dedicated 3270 terminal connected to its mainframe at Pine Bluff and Bayou Pierre and the plant personnel did their own empty releases and outbound billing directly into TCS. A first in the RR industry.
June 20, 2017 at 12:54 am #8357Dennis FairclothParticipantCharlie beat me to posting by about 10 minutes! His mention of Bayou Pierre was the key, as I had forgotten about that mill. I had eliminated Cypress Bend (near McGehee, AR); South Texarkana; Pine Bluff; Bastrop, LA; and Natchez, MS (gone now, but a good topic for another thread.) A Google Maps look verified the track arrangement.
A lot has changed since the photo. IP converted the mill from coal to natural gas, and the coal dump pit is filled in. The plant now is contract switched by WATCO.
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